Like all their race, these ants are in perpetual motion, forming lines on the ground along which they pass, in continual procession to and from the trees on which they reside. They are the most irritable of the whole order in Ceylon, biting with such intense ferocity as to render it difficult for the unclad natives to collect the fruit from, the mango trees, which the red ants especially frequent. They drop from the branches upon travellers in the jungle, attacking them with venom and fury, and inflicting intolerable pain both upon animals and man. On examining the structure of the head through a microscope, I found that the mandibles, instead of merely meeting in contact, are so hooked as to cross each other at the points, whilst the inner line is sharply serrated throughout its entire length; thus occasioning the intense pain of their bite, as compared with that of the ordinary ant. To check the ravages of the coffee bug (_Lecanium coffeoe_, Walker), which for some years past has devastated some of the plantations in Ceylon, the experiment was made of introducing the red ants, who feed greedily on the Coccus. But the remedy threatened to be attended with some inconvenience, for the Malabar Coolies, with bare and oiled skins, were so frequently and fiercely assaulted by the ants as to endanger their stay on the estates. The ants which burrow in the ground in Ceylon are generally, but not invariably, black, and some of them are of considerable size. One species, about the third of an inch in length, is abundant in the hills, and especially about the roots of trees, where they pile up the earth in circular heaps round the entrance to their nests, and in doing this I have observed a singular illustration of their instinct. To carry up each particle of sand by itself would be an endless waste of labour, and to carry two or more loose ones securely would be to them embarrassing, if not impossible; they therefore overcome the difficulty by glueing together with their saliva so much earth or sand as is sufficient for a burden, and each one may be seen hurrying up from below with his load, carrying it to the top of the circular heap outside, and throwing it over, whilst it is so strongly attached as to roll to the bottom without breaking asunder. The ants I have been here describing are inoffensive, differing in this particular from the Dimiya and another of similar size and ferocity, which is called by the Singhalese _Kaddiya_; and they have a legend illustrative of their alarm for the bites of the latter, to the effect that the cobra de capello invested the Kaddiya with her own venom in admiration of the singular courage displayed by these little creatures.[1] [Footnote 1: KNOX'S _Historical Relation of Ceylon_, pt i. ch vi. p. 23.]